Letter: Another way to save on special elections

I agree with your suggestions in "Hits and misses" on changing the process for special elections. However, there is another option: Don't count invalid votes. Since Dan Logue dropped out of the race in the general election, all votes for him were invalid and should not have been counted. I went to the Secretary of State website and got the final vote tally for the first special election in November. I then subtracted the invalid votes for Logue from the total and using the corrected total, recalculated the remaining candidates' vote percentage. Here are the results:

Thus there would have been no change in the ultimate result and taxpayer dollars would not have been wasted. So I suggest that Sen. Nielsen introduce a bill that specifically states that when a candidate drops out of the race: 1) that candidate's name be stricken from the ballot either before the ballots are printed or blacked out on the ballot after they are printed; 2) if the previous option cannot be done, then if a candidate drops out of the race before the polls close on Election Day, any votes for that candidate will be deemed invalid.